"I mean that I have never ceased to love you, Marian. Look at me now and tell me if you doubt it. Even while I cursed you for ruining my life, I loved you. Every day of the twenty years I have lived alone I have had your face before me, I have held out my arms beseeching you to come to me, I have beaten my head against the wall in despair that the one longing of my heart could never hope for realization." "You never told me--I did not know--" "I have at least been strong enough to keep my secret, Marian; but it is sacrilege for you to talk to me of marriage to your daughter. Now that you know the truth you will urge no further. Could anything be more dishonorable than to offer myself to her when even to-day my love for you is beating at my heart until I can scarcely contain it? No, no! let us have an end to all this mockery! In the name of a life's devotion, in the name of the love you once had for me--" "Release me, Philip," she entreated, frightened by his tenseness; but he only tightened his grip upon her hand. She realized the importance of terminating this impossible situation, regardless of the pain it might inflict. "I never loved you, Philip," she said deliberately. "At the time, I thought I did; but it was my mind and not my heart you dominated." He dropped her hand as if she had struck him, and, dazed, supported himself against the rustic chair. "You never loved me?" he repeated brokenly after her. "You never--oh, God! why did you tell me that! Why did you come back into my life to stir up those forces which had crushed me, but which I had at last subdued!" Then he turned his eyes upon her, full of the reproach which he dared not trust himself to speak. "If it was the domination of my mind then, why should it not be now?" he asked in a voice which trembled with emotion. "Look at me, Marian!" "Don't, Philip, I entreat of you; you frighten me! "Look at me!" he commanded, and she slowly raised her head and gazed into his face. "Do you remember the last time you looked at me like that?" he asked quietly, but even in his low tones there was a compelling force she recognized. "Come," he said rising, and drawing her toward him. "If it was not love which brought you to my arms before, then it must be the same impulse to-day. Come, Marian, it is not the daughter I want, it is you,--my beloved, my sweetheart of years gone by!" "Philip!" she protested feebly, "Philip--I entreat--" but the old, irresistible influence was too strong, and he folded her in his arms. In a moment his face changed as if touched by a magician's wand. The lines which years and disappointment had traced were miraculously smoothed away, and the expression of contentment was that which comes only when the seeker has at last reached the consummation of his quest. The lips moved silently, the eyes looked far into the distance. The past was forgotten, the future unheeded, but the wonderful present was his!